Wii EA Sports Active Review
Another fitness game for the Nintendo Wii was released on Tuesday, May 19th. EA Sports Active
Track Calories Burned
One of the most anticipated features of this game was the ability to track the number of calories burned with each exercise. EA Sports Active will tell you before each 30 minute workout routine how many calories you’re projected to burn, then as you exercise it will show you in real-time exactly how many calories you’ve burned during your workout. This is similar to the way a treadmill will show you how many calories you’ve burned, based on your weight and intensity of the workout.
Once you’ve completed your 30 minute routine you will be able to view a graph of your Projected Calories Burned versus your Actual Calories Burned. You can see at what points in your routine you exceeded your trainer’s expectations and at what points you fell below the projected calorie burn. Unfortunately you cannot view which exercises you excelled at, you can only view the graph based on the time of the workout. Also once you leave this summary screen there is no way to get back to it. You cannot track your calories burned over a day, week, or month which is a feature I really wish they would have implemented.
Personal Trainer
EA Sports Active offers the best workout routine to date for the Nintendo Wii. You can tell that the goal of this game is to provide a virtual personal trainer that is a good replacement for a live person. In EA Sports you have the option to chose from either a male or a female personal trainer, both are comparable and you can choose either depending on your personal preference.
Your EA Sports Personal Trainer will be responsible for motivating you and explaining the proper technique to complete each exercise. Your Virtual Trainer will excel at both of these tacks. Throughout the exercises your trainer continues to tell you that you’re doing a good job and are on your was to success. I’ve only done 5 sessions (about 30 minutes each) with my trainer, but as of the last exercise routine I found that I was motivated throughout the routine. The trainer will not say many different phrases to motivate you, and the phrases aren’t specific to what you’re doing at the moment so after a few more training routines she will likely become less motivating.
The most important task of your personal trainer is showing you the proper technique to get the most out of your workout. I consider EA Sport’s success in this area the biggest strength of this game. When you start each exercise you are presented with a few pictures and a description about what you’re doing. If this is your first time doing the exercise you will also be presented with an instructional video where you can watch your trainer do the exercise first. You should watch your trainer carefully because the position of the Wii Remote is critical in many exercises. For example in rollerblading, you crouch to gain speed, when doing this it is important to hold your hands behind you and point the Wiimote towards the ground so the game knows you’re crouching. This may seem burdensome, but the instructional videos make it very easy to understand. If you forget how to hold the Wiimote mid-exercise you can always look in the bottom right corner of your screen to see how your training is doing the exercise.
If you don’t hold your wii-mote just right, or if you don’t have the sensitivity of the wii-mote adjusted properly you will find that the game doesn’t detect what you’re doing and it will pause the workout while you redo the repetition you were working on. This can get slightly annoying, but I’ve found the more I’ve played the less that happens. Your EA Sports Personal Trainer also lacks the ability to challenge you further depending on your stamina. This is really what makes a real personal trainer so worth while. They know your limits better than you do, and will push you to them. EA Sports Active has a set number of repetitions that you have to do, and while it will motivate you to complete them it won’t push you any harder to do more reps if you still have the energy.
Resistance Band and Leg Strap
Included with your purchase of EA Sports Active are two fitness accessories, the resistance band and the leg strap. These accessories are used during your fitness routines to help you get a more intense workout and track your movements more accurately. If you’ve ever played the Wii Fit jogging exercise you’ll remember how you were required to put the Wii Remote in your pocket to jog. Not all of us had pockets large enough to fit the Wiimote, and some of us had such deep pockets that the Wiimote wouldn’t sit properly. The Leg Strap included with EA Sports Active was designed to resolve that problem. You wear it on your upper leg and slide the nunchuck into the pocket of the Leg Strap. Not only does this allow your movements to be recorded properly for jogging exercises, but you will also use it for lunges, jumping, and rollerblading.
I have been very satisfied with the performance of the leg strap; no exercises that use it have an issue recognizing my motions. To achieve the best accuracy the Leg Strap needs to be worn as high on the thigh as possible, and for those people with big legs, an extension is included which allow you to extend the size of the Leg Strap. This won’t be a problem for most people, but in the event that the resistance band doesn’t fit properly you can put the nunchuck in your pocket, or modify the Leg Strap by either sewing it onto a pair of workout pants or extending it by adding another elastic to it.
The Resistance Band on the other hand doesn’t seem to work so well. I’m pretty tall at 6′4″ and the band still doesn’t offer me much resistance. This seems to be a common complaint from others who I’ve played with. I’ve found that if I want to get a little bit more resistance out of the band I can tie the handles on in a way that makes the resistance band just a little bit shorter. This has worked great for me, though I’m not sure that the Resistance Band was designed for this, and I may be shortening the life of it by doing it this way. The alternative is purchasing a high-quality resistance band that will provide you with a better workout. You can purchase a 5 pack of resistance bands from Amazon.com that range from 3 to 42 lbs of resistance. Ripcords Exercise Bands – Power Tension 5 Pack
One of my favorite features of EA Sports Active is that you can workout with a friend. Many exercises do not require you to use the Resistance Band and Leg Strap, however if the second player want the full experience an EA Sports Active Multiplayer Pack
Wii Fit Balance Board
If you’ve already purchased the Wii Fit then you already have the Balance Board, which is an optional accessory for EA Sports Active. When you create your profile you can specify whether you have access to the Wii Fit Balance Board. If you do have access to this accessory then a number of additional exercises will become available to you. Typically the exercises that utilize the Wii Balance Board are not a better workout than those that don’t utilize it, they’re just different. For example the standard Rollerblading exercise requires you to crouch down, then jump up when you go over a ramp so you can do a trick. For the Balance Board enhanced version of Rollerblading you crouch down to gain speed, then instead of jumping up you need to lift either your left or right leg to avoid obstacles. It is fun to use the Balance Board occasionally for exercises, but it is not a necessary accessory to play the game.
Since EA Sports Active does have a multi-player option available, you should be aware that the exercises that utilize the balance board will not be available in multi-player mode. There is no way to add in an extra Balance Board if your friend has one. One area I do find lacking is the use of the Balance Board outside of fitness games. While it is easy to access the Wii Fit game to weigh in if you create a shortcut on the Wii Home Screen, it would be nice if EA Sports Active gave you the ability to track your weight. Since you can view reports of how well you ate, and how much you sleep it would be nice if you could compare that to how much weight you lost. Unfortunately this isn’t an option.
In conclusion EA Sports Active
There is still much more to discuss about this game, feel free to post any questions or comments you have about the game here. Also look forward to some additional articles from me reviewing specific exercises in this game. Thanks for reading my article, don’t forget to subscribe to my Twitter Feed so you know when I add a new article.
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